Rising Tension in the 1930s

Forty-eight hours that were never used

At dawn on 7 March 1936 German troops marched into the Rhineland, the strip of Germany along the French border that Versailles and Locarno had made a demilitarised zone. Around 22,000 men took part; only about 3,000 crossed the river, and their commanders carried sealed orders to withdraw at once if the French army moved. Hitler said afterwards that the forty-eight hours after the march were the most nerve-racking of his life. France, with 100 divisions on paper and an election three weeks away, consulted Britain, and Britain declined to act over what one newspaper called Germans walking into their own back garden. It was the third breach of Versailles in twelve months and the first that could have been stopped by force. Conscription in March 1935 had been answered by the Stresa Front, a protest that dissolved within two months when Britain signed a naval agreement with Germany. The Rhineland was answered by nothing. From then on each step was larger than the last: Austria in March 1938, the Sudetenland in September, the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, and on 1 September 1939 Poland, with the Soviet Union bought off a week earlier by a pact that divided Eastern Europe in a secret clause. AQA asks you to sequence this escalation and to show how each event raised the stakes for the next, and it examines the topic through sources: a cartoon to read, two documents to weigh, an account to write, and a judgement to defend. The reasons for appeasement and the question of blame belong to the two modules that follow this one; here the job is the chain itself, with dates and numbers.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in a source answer.

The escalation, in order

Put these six events in the order they happened.

• Hitler announces conscription and an army of 550,000, and Britain, France and Italy protest at Stresa
• German troops remilitarise the Rhineland and France does not move
• German troops enter Austria and the Anschluss is proclaimed
• Chamberlain, Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler agree at Munich that the Sudetenland passes to Germany
• German troops occupy Prague and the rest of Czechoslovakia, and Britain guarantees Poland
• Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, and Poland is invaded nine days later

Why did each step lead to a larger one?

Between 1935 and 1939 every breach of the treaties was bigger than the one before. Which explanation best accounts for the escalation?

• Each unopposed step taught Hitler that the next would be unopposed too: the Naval Agreement of 1935 showed Britain would bargain, the Rhineland of 1936 showed France would not fight alone, and Munich in 1938 showed both would give away an ally rather than risk war; each step also strengthened him for the next, adding the Saar coalfields, an army of 550,000, the Rhineland fortifications, Austrian iron and gold, and the Czech arms factories; and each removed a restraint, from the Stresa Front broken by Abyssinia to the Soviet Union bought off in August 1939.
• Hitler was following a fixed timetable written in 1933.
• The League of Nations ordered the Allies not to intervene.
• Britain and France had no armed forces left after 1919.

Development and escalation

The two key elements divide the decade at the Rhineland. Before it, Hitler tested the treaties; after it, he tore them up. One column each, with what the Allies did in reply.

Question 1: how do you know?

Source A: a description of a cartoon by David Low published in the London Evening Standard on 8 July 1936, four months after the Rhineland. A figure of Hitler with a swastika armband climbs a staircase whose steps are the bent backs of statesmen in top hats, each labelled with a treaty or a country he has stepped over; the staircase is captioned Spineless Leaders of Democracy, and at the top a large sign reads Boss of the Universe. AQA Question 1 says: Source A is critical of the governments of Britain and France. How do you know? Tap the TWO details that show the criticism most directly.

• The steps Hitler climbs are the bent backs of the democratic statesmen, which presents each act of appeasement as a leader bowing down for him to walk over.
• Hitler wears a swastika armband.
• The staircase is labelled Spineless Leaders of Democracy, so that the cartoonist names the fault, weakness, and the people at fault, the Western governments, rather than Hitler.
• The cartoon appeared in a London newspaper.
• The sign at the top of the staircase is large.

The Sudeten crisis and after

Select the THREE statements that are true of the crisis of 1938 and what followed it.

• Chamberlain flew three times in a fortnight: to Berchtesgaden on 15 September, where he accepted the principle of transferring the Sudetenland; to Godesberg on 22 September, where Hitler raised his demands; and to Munich on 29 September, where the four powers agreed the transfer without Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union present.
• The Sudetenland held the Czech frontier fortifications and much of its industry, so that after 30 September the rest of the country was indefensible, and on 15 March 1939 German troops occupied Prague without a treaty even being broken in name.
• Prague ended appeasement as a policy: on 31 March 1939 Britain guaranteed Poland, conscription was introduced in Britain in April, and talks were opened with the Soviet Union that Stalin abandoned for the German offer in August.
• Czechoslovakia signed the Munich Agreement as an equal partner.
• The Soviet Union was invited to Munich and refused to attend.
• Munich ended the crisis and there was no further German expansion before the war.

The map after Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles redrew the map of Germany, and almost every crisis of the 1930s happened on that new map. In the west, Alsace-Lorraine went back to France, the Rhineland was demilitarised, and the coal-rich Saar was run by the League of Nations for fifteen years. In the east, the Polish Corridor gave Poland a route to the sea and cut East Prussia off from the rest of Germany, with Danzig made a free city. The Sudetenland, the German-speaking rim of Czechoslovakia, was never German before 1938, but Hitler claimed it all the same. Austria, to the south, was forbidden to unite with Germany.

Question 2: how useful are two sources?

AQA Question 2 gives you two sources and asks how useful they are to a historian studying one thing, for 12 marks. The two below are described for this module; the exam prints the real text. Enquiry: British reactions to the Munich Agreement. Source B. From the statement Chamberlain read outside 10 Downing Street on 30 September 1938, on his return from Munich, in which he held up the paper signed by Hitler and himself and spoke of peace with honour and peace for our time, to a crowd that cheered him. Source C. From the speech by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on 5 October 1938, in the debate on the agreement, in which he called it a total and unmitigated defeat, said that Britain had sustained a defeat without a war, and warned that this was only the beginning of the reckoning. The method is the same for both: content (what it says about the enquiry), provenance (who, when, why, and what that does to its value), and own knowledge to test it. Source B is useful for the official reaction and the relief of the crowd, from the man who made the agreement, on the day; its purpose was to reassure, and it shows what the government wanted people to feel. Source C is useful for the opposition at its strongest, from a backbencher out of office who had warned of Germany for five years; it was made to a House that then approved the agreement by 366 votes to 144, which tells you how small that opposition was in October 1938. This meant that B shows the reaction of the majority and C the argument that the majority came round to by March 1939, and a top-level answer says what each is useful FOR rather than which is right.

In the shoes of Hitler and the Allies

Four decisions between 1935 and 1939. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice led to.

• June 1935. You are the British government. Germany has just broken Versailles by announcing conscription, and at Stresa you promised France and Italy a common front. Germany now offers to limit its navy to 35 per cent of yours. What do you do?
• 7 March 1936. You are the French government. German battalions are in the Rhineland this morning. Your generals say mobilisation would cost 30 million francs a day and Britain will not help. What do you do?
• 22 September 1938. You are Chamberlain at Bad Godesberg. A week ago Hitler accepted the transfer of the Sudetenland after a plebiscite; today he demands immediate occupation by 1 October and adds Polish and Hungarian claims. What do you do?
• August 1939. You are Stalin. Britain and France, who left you out of Munich, are offering an alliance with no guarantee that Poland will let your troops in; Germany is offering a pact with a free hand in eastern Poland and the Baltic. What do you do?

From cause to consequence

Because Britain signed the Naval Agreement of June 1935 without telling France or Italy, the _____ Front collapsed two months after it was formed. Because France did not march when German troops entered the _____ in March 1936, Hitler learned that the West would not fight for a treaty. Because Mussolini, isolated over Abyssinia, joined Hitler in the Axis, the power that had stopped the Anschluss in 1934 waved it through in _____. Because Munich handed Germany the Sudeten fortifications, the rest of Czechoslovakia could not be defended and fell in March 1939. And because Stalin had been left out of Munich, he accepted the German offer of _____ August 1939 and Poland was invaded on _____ September.

The Saar plebiscite

In the Saar plebiscite of 13 January 1935, about 477,000 people voted to return to Germany out of about 528,000 valid votes. What percentage voted for Germany, to the nearest whole number?

Name the places on the map

Tap a place name, then tap the pin on the region it names.

Question 1: how do you know, marked

AQA Question 1 asks: Source A (the Low cartoon) is critical of the governments of Britain and France. How do you know? It is marked for 4 on identifying the message and supporting it from the source with own knowledge. Which answer scores all four?

• I know because Low draws the democratic leaders as a staircase of bent backs labelled spineless, so that every step Hitler takes upward is a Western government bowing to let him pass. That fits what had happened by July 1936: the Naval Agreement had broken Stresa in 1935 and the Rhineland had been reoccupied in March without a French soldier moving, and Low, who opposed appeasement throughout, was blaming the leaders rather than Hitler.
• The cartoon shows Hitler climbing a staircase made of politicians.
• Low was a left-wing cartoonist who always attacked the government.
• The cartoon supports appeasement because it shows Hitler as strong.

March 1936

In March 1936 Hitler marched troops into this demilitarised zone. Tap it.

Question 3: an account, marked

Question 3: Write an account of how the Sudeten crisis of 1938 became an international crisis. The crisis began with the Anschluss of 12 March 1938, because the absorption of Austria left Czechoslovakia surrounded on three sides and encouraged the 3 million Germans of the Sudetenland, led by Henlein, to demand autonomy that Hitler privately told them to make impossible to grant. Through the summer Hitler threatened war over the treatment of the Sudeten Germans, and by September the German army was mobilising, which led Chamberlain to fly to Berchtesgaden on 15 September, where he accepted the transfer of the Sudetenland in principle and then persuaded the French and the Czechs to agree. This in turn produced the real crisis, because when Chamberlain returned to Godesberg on 22 September Hitler raised his demands to immediate occupation by 1 October, which Britain and France refused: the Royal Navy was mobilised, the French called up reservists, trenches were dug in London parks and gas masks issued, and for a week Europe expected war. The crisis ended as an international settlement rather than a war because Mussolini proposed a four-power conference, and at Munich on 29 to 30 September Chamberlain, Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler agreed the transfer, with the Czechs told the result and the Soviet Union not invited. The account shows a local quarrel made international at each step: by the Anschluss, by the German mobilisation, by the British and French decision first to concede and then to refuse, and by the conference that gave Hitler at Munich almost what he had demanded at Godesberg. What earned the marks: a sequence of events with dates and figures; each linked to the next by because, which led and this in turn, so that the account explains how the crisis grew rather than listing it; and a closing sentence that says what the chain shows. That structure, sustained, is what reaches the top level of the 8-mark account.

Question 4: the 16-mark judgement

"The remilitarisation of the Rhineland in 1936 was the most important step in the growth of tension in Europe in the years 1933 to 1939." How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.

• One paragraph on the Rhineland: the date, the numbers, the orders to withdraw, why France did not move, and what Hitler learned from it
• At least two paragraphs on other steps with dated support: conscription and the collapse of Stresa in 1935, the Anschluss and Munich in 1938, or the occupation of Prague and the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939

Question 4: the judgement, tested

A student has argued that the Rhineland was the most important step in the growth of tension. Which is the strongest point to set AGAINST that judgement, in the way the top level of Question 4 requires?

• The Rhineland was the last step that could have been reversed cheaply, and its lesson mattered, but it was Munich that made war certain rather than possible: it gave Germany the Czech fortifications and arms factories, it showed Stalin that the West would not fight and pushed him towards the pact of August 1939, and its collapse at Prague in March 1939 produced the Polish guarantee that turned the next German move into a world war; so the Rhineland explains why Hitler kept going and Munich explains why the next step could not be stopped, and a judgement should say that the earlier step raised tension and the later one made it irreversible.
• Hitler wanted war whatever the Allies did, so no step mattered more than another.
• Only 3,000 troops crossed the Rhine, so the Rhineland was unimportant.
• Hitler said the Rhineland was the most nerve-racking moment of his life, so it was the most important.